Her Lingering Shadow
by Dakk Tribal
Summary: Leon is sent to retrieve some data from an old Umbrella facility outside Chicago.  Simple search and retrieve mission.  Too bad it gets even more complicated when an unexpected female spy appears to be after the same thing. What will happen?
1. Chapter 1

The small helicopter was flying through the night air going at a not too noticeable speed over Chicago. The Windy City was bright with light, and the light shown into the chopper. The lights inside the cab normally helped as well, and that was helpful as Leon checked on his equipment, mentally checking off a list of items he'd need for his mission.

_Assault rifle, check. Pistol, check. Ammo, check. Frag grenades, check. Combat knife, check. Extra ammo—_

Leon Kennedy checked off the last one twice. He knew he'd probably need the extra ammo. He carried four clips for it. The reason being his mission was possibly centered on what he knew best: bio-weapons that kill people, infect them, and turn them into another bio-weapon in the process. If that was the case, you could never have more than enough ammunition for that.

The pilot's voice came in through his comm-link, "We'll be over the location in five minutes. Hope you're ready."

"Oh I will, just be sure to get me as close as you can before you bail on me," Leon retorted.

The pilot laughed, "Smartass. The name is Nathan. I may be the one sending you there, but I'm also going to be the one to get you out once you're done."

"Good, Nathan," Leon replied, putting a fresh clip in his 9mm pistol and putting it in his thigh holster. Next came the assault rifle, Leon talked with Nathan while he checked it a final time.

"So, you're Leon Kennedy?" He heard Nathan say. Leon wasn't sure if the radio he had was being recorded. Security was tight in situations like this. It wouldn't hurt to have a conversation before a mission, he thought.

"Yeah."

"Really? The same man who—"

"Saved the President's daughter in Spain, and was involved in the Harvardville Incident. Yup, that's me," Leon said nonchalantly. He had heard many people talk about those incidents while he wasn't around. Not in a negative way, most of the time he had heard people praising his success. He was also, he found out, somewhat of a hero to the new guys. _Guessing Nathan is one of them, _he thought with a crooked smile.

"Wow, it's an honor Leon. I just transferred here a week ago," he replied, excitement hidden by a near shaky voice. Leon secretly hoped he wasn't like what Chris Redfield had told him about a man named Brad Vickers. Chicken-heart Vickers, is what they called him. He had been the pilot for the STARS team, but he was not the kind to stay and fight.

_Heard that many times before, but I'm just a normal guy. A guy who fights giants and zombies for a living_.

"Sorry for intruding on your past, but is it true you were also in on the incident at Raccoon City?"

That caught Leon by surprise, not too many people knew about that part of his file. Guess it was well known now. "Yeah."

This seemed to excite Nathan, "Just asking out of curiosity, but _how_ were you able to survive _that_?"

"Sheer will and determination, kid," Leon replied quickly. It wasn't total bullshit, but it was the most common reply he gave to his superiors when asked a similar question. It seemed to please them enough to get a good grade on his resume. And while it had been guts, determination, and will that helped him escape the inferno that had been Raccoon, Leon had not survived it alone. Claire Redfield, Chris' sister, had also been visiting Raccoon at the same time Leon had been arriving for his first day as a R.P.D. officer. First day on the job and he enters hell. What a way to start a career. First day and he had to fight zombies that ate living humans, as well as dogs, crows, and even monsters that resembled inside-out spider men with insanely long tongues. _Lickers,_ Leon remembered. And then there was a Tyrant, but Leon had tried to forget about that particular foe. Claire had survived, as well as a little girl named Sherry Birkin. He didn't know it then, but little Sherry's parents had been the ones who had created the nightmare that they had fallen into.

As for Leon, he had gone through Raccoon alone, and he had left Raccoon City with Claire and Sherry. That was what the file stated. It made no mention of the woman who had saved his life and had, as he had thought at the time, died in the explosion of the underground lab.

_Ada Wong made sure I survived. I thank her enough for that._ He had not known her for long, as much as the time as he spent in raccoon, and even less when he had been in Spain, but he felt he had known Ada personally. And no matter how hard he tried, Leon could not shake the fact that she may being following him, in spirit if not physically. Her shadow never left him, it seemed.

"Leon, we're over it now. We're landing," Nathan said.

Leon looked out the small window of the cab and saw just a construction site with a large building under construction. He couldn't help but notice how out of place this was, so far away from the city of Chicago. The only thing man-made that was nearby was a single road. That was it, besides a few smaller buildings for workers to stay and such.

Leon opened the door as soon as the chopper landed, "I'll call once I am done."

"Right, I'll be grounded nearby," Nathan said.

Before he left, Leon said one final thing to the rookie, "And Nathan? Don't be late."

Nathan saluted, "Count on me, sir," and Leon closed the door.

She was the only one left. Everyone else was dead. Bridget Whitman knew that much of her situation. Someone had been killing everyone in the facility, an assassin sent to silence the remaining members of the Umbrella staff.

That was what she had been told to expect, what she had not expected was the swiftness of the killings. It had only started a few hours ago, just soon after the facility director called. He told her to retrieve all the company's data of weapons research and top-secret formulas.

And that was why Bridget holed herself up in the control room, to hide from her would-be-assassins and get her last request done.

She had two corporate soldiers with her, mercenary types sent in to escort her out of the building but she had insisted on retrieving the data stored in the main computer. That was what she was doing now, frantically trying to rip the data out on a single CD-Rom. All the while she kept an eye on the sixteen video camera that were positioned on the above ground level and the lower levels. Three of them were blank, two were static, and the others were in fine working order, though they were in black and white.

Bridget kept going from left to right across the four rows of camera screens, paying special attention to the third to second to last one in the fourth row. That camera feed was right outside the main elevator entrance/exit on the surface.

_Once the data is done downloading, I'll escape on the company chopper, and head home…forever…_ Bridget was a mess, having hid in fear and cowered in the corner until the two guards arrived. Part of a small group of six agents, the other four were on the surface while their two best went to retrieve her and anyone else that was alive. She was the only one left in the complex. Soon, she'd be out of this place, and be heading home, she loved the idea of heading home, and she became lost in the thought—

-until she saw a figure walking toward the main entrance, a man, with a gun. Bridget's eyes nearly bulged from her head and she stopped breathing as she saw him walking toward—

_-Oh no!_ He was heading for the entrance, and her exit!

"Tell your guys to be ready for an intruder!" She ordered.

One of the guards, the bigger one, nodded and pushed a button on his radio, Bridget saw a light flashing on both the radios of the two men, like a warning light. She gave a small breath of relief. Whoever was up there would soon die a sudden and painful death.

The construction site was a nice little cover picture for the façade that Ada Wong found herself in. She walked quickly, a near jog, through the white hallway, her high heels clicking against the white marble floor. She had been in the place for only a half hour, and she already wanted to get out. The place was really quiet, only her walking could be heard, and the echo they created made it hard to tell how big the place really was. She was already two floors under the building, and everything looked the same. An all white laboratory facility that was probably storeys deep into the mid-western earth.

_Umbrella loved over-exercising their right to make everything so goddamn big_, she thought.

The facility was supposed to be abandoned, according to her informant who had been sketchy to begin with. He had said that the place had been abandoned in the wake of Umbrella's downfall, but that didn't mean that it was _totally_ empty.

Ada had seen evidence to support that. Fresh food and water, as well as utilities were abundant, and there were even papers noted by dates as late as four days ago. So, the place was still operational. However, Ada had failed to find anyone alive, or dead. She had seen some areas where violence had taken place, bullet casings and fresh blood splattered on the walls in a violent manner. She shivered a bit, remembering what she had encountered in Raccoon City eight years ago, with zombies and other forms of monstrosities that had plagued the city. She had seen things she would have rather had forgotten.

She also shivered because someone appeared to have turned on the frickin air-conditioning, making the place extremely cold. And Ada had not been dressed for it to be so cold, wearing an open red dress (called a qipuo, a Chinese dress), and she had her legs bare save for some small accessories.

Ada honestly didn't think she'd be in a cold environment, otherwise she would have dressed more accordingly. That was why she was running, get her blood running, and hopefully escape the hole she was in.

First she had to find that scientist named Bridget Whitman, she was the one who had access to her objective. If Ada could find her, then she'd complete her mission and hopefully get into a hot bath.

_But where could that woman be? She could be anywhere in the place, and what if she had left already? Long before I had set foot in this place?_

Those questions ran through the spy's mind, and she only walked on, trying not to care about the ifs, and trying to remain focused.

_Focused, like I had been in Raccoon._, she thought. That mission had changed her life, more for the better, she recalled. Monsters, reporters, zombies, the list of creatures born of the T-Virus seemed to be endless. Ada had been on a mission to retrieve a sample of the G-Virus from an Umbrella researcher named William Birkin. But right from the get-go, the mission had been a catastrophe. The reporter she had been sent to kill had been done in before she could do him in, and a monster named Mr. X destroyed the virus sample, which Ada had had in her possession without her even knowing. And she nearly died.

Would have died, if it hadn't been for Leon.

Leon S. Kennedy, at the time a rookie cop from the R.P.D. He had just transferred to Raccoon when the hell of the city was unleashed on him. He found Ada trying to escape, and he treated her like any cop would with a civilian. He saved Ada's life at least twice during their escape, he even took a bullet for her.

The rookie had, in the process, changed her. Ada had changed, because of the cop's self-less acts. Maybe, he had given her something to think about other than herself as well. She swore to return the kindness. And she returned it in full.

Her thoughts of the past slowly returned to the present, and Ada had to pull herself out of the nostalgia and press onward. Feelings for Leon could come at another time.

She refocused herself. Nothing would stop her from pulling this mission off.


	2. Chapter 2

_They said the place was empty, and that no updates to the building had happened in the last few months._ Leon had remembered about that fact in the report. He noticed the neglect of the tools and such. Piles of gravel were stuck with cement long dry and evidence of animal activity.

Leon didn't search the smaller buildings. Umbrella would have never stationed people outside this late. It'd be more than suspicious of them to do.

Leon, pistol in hand and taking cover behind anything big enough to hide his massive frame, he made his way to a single concrete shed. If there was one thing he knew about Umbrella, is that they put the entrances to their secret labs in the most obvious of places. He remembered a facility in Nevada he had infiltrated with Claire that was hidden under a weather station. A weather station in the middle of a featureless desert. He thought that had been ridiculous of them.

So, a shed made of concrete didn't seem to be any less obvious for an entrance for Leon. He kept the M16 he had shouldered, ready for when he needed it against the big guys, should they show up. He reached the door and tried to open it. Locked. _No surprise…they wouldn't just let people waltz into the place—_

He heard a low rumbling coming from behind the door, and then a loud 'ding', like an elevator would make. Not wanting to wait and find out what was coming, Leon took refuge nearby, behind a large stack of metal beams.

He heard the door open, and a few pairs of footsteps scurried in all directions, but not in panic. _Taking position, no doubt they know I'm here._

Leon knew this was going to be a less than simple mission now. He silently put his pistol away, and readied the M16 and frag grenades.

"Team deployed, trying to find the intruder. Dr. Whitman we should hurry and get out of here," the Captain said over the radio.

The doctor heard him, and she was nearing the end of her crazy downloading. _96% complete…hurry up dammit!_

Once the disk was ready, she would leave, no sooner and certainly no later. That man above ground was not the only one lurking around.

_The witch in the dress is also searching the place. No doubt looking for the data room._ Bridget was in a panic more so because the woman had infiltrated the place just before the man on the ground had arrived. She didn't see a coincidence there. The two must be working together.

She wouldn't let either of them have the data, her superiors wanted it and she would get it to them. Even if it cost her her life.

As if right on cue, the data had finished downloading. Taking the disc, Bridget it put it in a case before putting it in a heavy-duty briefcase. A case that held a nasty surprise. Twelve pounds of C4 plastique explosive. Just in case the data got into the wrong hands, Bridget had been ordered to destroy it should she be unable to get it into company possession.

She locked the disc in the case before looking at her escort, "Alright, let's get out of here."

It didn't take Ada long to realize she'd been going the wrong way all along. She felt like a new kid in a school who had been lead to the wrong class. The data room was near the elevator, and she had missed it as soon as she had walked out of the damn elevator.

So, after mentally cursing herself for her mistake, Ada had to go back up the two floors she had gone down in earlier.

Once she reached Floor B1, she acted rather cautious. Once she found the data room, there was a good chance that someone would be hiding in that room. Despite her best efforts to remain quiet, her heels making noise made that impossible.

At the last corner before the last hallway, Ada took cover, hearing the sound of an electronic door opening. Peeking around the corner, she saw one armed man, followed by another, and finally a woman in a white lab coat come out of the wall. No wonder she couldn't find the door, it had literally been invisible to the eye.

Hearing a 'ding' and hearing the elevator doors open and close after a few moments, Ada knew her game plan had changed now. The woman had been carrying a case. Something important was obviously in it, what with the armed escort the woman had been with. _She has the data_, she concluded.

No longer worried about concealment, Ada ran down the hall and entered the elevator, just as she did she heard a low boom from over her head. Something was going on above ground, and she knew she'd be walking right into it.

The frag grenade had done its work. Leon saw a few body parts and pieces of concrete fly over his head from behind his cover. He also heard screaming, agonized pain from who ever survived the blast.

He fired a few bursts from the M16, short controlled bursts, nailing one of the men near the elevator door. Leon couldn't tell if he was wounded or dead, but if he was on the ground then he wasn't a big threat in his view.

"Don't let the intruder near the doctor!"

That voice came from the elevator, Leon saw three people come out of said elevator, two or three more armed men and a person in a white lab coat.

A woman in white, carrying a case in her right hand ran to the left of the door and behind the shed.

_Okay, change of plan. Again._

Leon had been ordered to seize and capture anyone from Umbrella and whatever they may have in possession. Now, his objective had changed to getting the woman and arresting her. Like a job a cop would do, and a former cop would do as well.

_How ironic_, he thought.

Gunshots from the assault rifles that the men had bounced off the metal beams Leon was taking cover behind, creating sparks with each hit. Leon's grenade apparently got more out of them than he thought. _Probably scared the fuck out of them_, Leon hoped.

More shots followed, and Leon assessed the situation. If his objective was to get the woman, he'd have to get past these guys first, and he didn't have a lot of ammo left. A clip and a fourth for the rifle he had, and three clips for the pistol, and there was at least four more men left he had to take out to get to the woman. And whose to say she isn't armed to the teeth already?

As he contemplated that thought, he heard more gunshots. However, these were different. The shots Leon heard were single shots, like from a pistol, and unless they were shooting single shots to conserve ammunition, then there was someone else—

-he heard a pair of screams that verified the speculation—

-And as Leon sat back from the corner of his cover, he saw a flash of red come from the corner of his right eye.

And once he finished turning his head in that direction, he met the deep blue eyes of a familiar face.

Ada Wong was looking right at him, no more than an arm's reach away from him, and the only thing Leon could think of was, _I'm not even gonna ask…_


	3. Chapter 3

When Ada had climbed over the beam stack, she hadn't been expecting the man of her past to be sitting there, hands clamped around the handle and trigger of an M16 assault rifle with a look of seriousness on his face. She had been surprised he hadn't shot her yet, as she was surprised that she recognized him. And while it had only been two years since the Los Illuminados incident, Leon looked like he had gotten twice as big as last time.

Taking a quick breath, Ada wanted to say something to Leon, but bullets ricocheting off the beam pile knocked her attempt at a pleasant greeting out the window.

She saw Leon reach for his belt, pulling out a grenade, and throwing it around the corner. The explosion rocked the area, but it seemed it did the trick since the firing stopped.

Ada waited for anything more, a return grenade, or Leon to start talking. She was slightly surprised that he spoken not a word since she had appeared next to him. Either her sudden appearance didn't surprise him, or he had grown used to her showing up unexpectedly, like she had in Spain.

Standing up, Ada turned to Leon as he stood up as well. She was able to get a good look at him too. He had gotten bigger, only slightly, but that made little difference in Ada's mind. As she was about to open her mouth, a man stepped out from behind Leon. Acting out of instinct, Ada spun, doing a spin kick that knocked the man back while missing Leon. Leon responded by shooting with the rifle he had, missing Ada barely. The double click the gun made after the firing stopped signaled an empty magazine.

The dead man fell to the ground, and now Ada had her back to the agent, the space between them no more than a few inches, and she wondered, _what will he do…_

Leon ejected the magazine from the rifle, but instead of reloading he shouldered the weapon, taking out his pistol from his side holster. He never took his eyes off Ada while he did that. He had to now watch what he did since Ada was around. While she had saved his life and all, and against the feelings he may have for her, he knew that he couldn't quite trust her. She had threatened to kill him at least twice during their encounters, and he learned from them: _Ada Wong is not a woman to take lightly_, he thought.

That was why he remained silent, to not let his guard down around her, but his eyes didn't have that seriousness right now. Her figure, still alluring even more in that red dress Ada was well known for, was starting to become a distraction to him. While he was a man who stuck to his mission to the point, he still had time to take in her beauty. His response to that was to not look at her, and he did with some reluctance.

And then Leon knew he had yet another problem.

_Alright, now I have to find that woman before she does, and try not to get killed—by either the woman or Ada._ Leon did particularly like it when things go from complicated to overly complicated, making his job even tougher than he had predicted it would be. _At least what I am facing are human…_ he thought positively.

He waited for Ada to start to leave, or at least to turn her gun on him. When she didn't do either he started to wonder what she was waiting for.

He didn't have time to wait for her now, as the reason why he was in the area suddenly came back to him. He had to get that case!

He quickly moved past the woman in red, moving towards the steps heading to the next floor, passing the bodies of the men the two had killed. Leon tried to keep Ada off his mind as he ran.

_Well, now that went nicely_, Ada thought, taking another breath before she ran off after Leon. She had to retrieve the data, and then…she'd have to deal with Leon. Something she was not in anyway looking forward to doing.

Bridget knew all the men sent to protect her were dead. She knew that once the firing had stopped. She was on her own. The only she knew what to do now was to run, keep the data away from the assassins that were after her.

But without a vehicle to take, and trapped like a rat as well as without a weapon…she knew that her end was imminent. Still, until she reached the top, she'd keep on running.

Leon reached the top of the building, not running into any opposition, and Ada had seemed to have gone, but he felt that, like a shadow, she was somewhere. _Ada's not the type to leave empty handed_, he thought.

His mind returned to apprehending the doctor. His plan was to just take her down without hurting her and he hoped she'd give up easily. But when a person is cornered, and that person is from Umbrella, things don't go according to plan at all.

So, he'd take this situation like he had been taught during basic: negotiation before violence, if they resist physically, take them out.

Soon enough, he found her. Standing at least five yards from him, the woman was armed with a small pistol in her right hand and the briefcase in her left. She was pointing the gun at Leon, and the agent got into his stance.

Aiming his pistol with a steady grip, Leon shouted, "Drop the gun. Surrender and you won't get hurt!"

She shook her head, "There is no way I'm giving you this! You've already destroyed the company! This is all that I have left!"

Leon took a few steps forward, "I'll say it again. Drop the gun!"

Taking a drastic step, the woman pointed her gun at herself, placing the barrel against her right temple, "Take another step, and I-I'll do it!"

Despite her shaky voice and hand, Leon didn't want to take the chance, he took a step back. "You don't want that."

"Who are you to say that you won't kill me once I hand this over? I'm not going to—" A shot rang out from behind Leon and the woman groaned in pain before falling in a heap to the metal grating, and she didn't get up again.

Leon turned to see Ada standing behind him, her firearm smoking at the barrel from the single shot she had fired.

She had not wanted to do that, but Ada was in a bit of a hurry. Despite Leon's efforts to stop the woman's suicidal attempt to keep the data from falling into enemy hands, Ada had to get what she wanted.

The only thing standing between her and accomplishing her mission was the agent Leon S. Kennedy.

"Sorry about that, Leon, but I have a job to do," Ada said, taking a few steps forward, holding her gun up with her right hand. She got no more than an arm's length from Leon before he raised his pistol again, holding it in a similar manner she was in his left hand. Each of the pistols were touching the flesh of the other. Leon's gun was pressing against Ada's right side, in her ribs alongside her breast, and Ada's was just above Leon's heart.

"I know you won't shoot me," she said, trying to coax him into lowering his weapon.

It didn't work, "Don't try bullshitting me, Ada. You're after the case, right?"

_That wasn't hard to figure out_. "First words you've said to me in two years and you're very rude. Not a nice thing to ay to a girl Leon."

Her playing with him didn't phase him, "We have a problem, Ada."

She got a bit serious, "Yes, we do, don't we…"

Ada felt the gun press against her chest. He meant to shoot her, or at least make her think twice of getting past him. But Ada wasn't the kind of woman to back down from her objective, especially when she is so close.

But Ada had an idea, one she knew would work.

When someone had hand on his weapon, Leon would of normally done a takedown maneuver. That is, if it had been anyone other than Ada Wong. His logic was screaming at him to be careful. And he would listen, eventually.

Leon watched as Ada placed her free hand on his hand, moving it to her left side of her chest, and she said, "If you want to kill me, try aiming a little higher, like where the heart is."

Her hand was cold against his, and his heart beat a little faster. Was she trying to make him shoot her? Or was this just a trick? He felt her press the gun more into her chest, and now Leon was not liking this. He really didn't want to shoot her.

Leon loosened a bit, and Ada pounced like a cat. She tried to flip him on his back, but he had learned from another fight to continue to roll, and Leon found himself on one knee, but still holding his weapon in his right hand. But Ada was higher than he was, her weapon pointing right at his forehead at point-blank range.

She had him beat. He could get a shot off, but not before Ada could put a hole in his head. All Leon could say was, "You got me."

This seemed to please Ada, she smiled a little, "Even when staring death in the face, you have a sense of humor."

"You knew I wouldn't shoot you, even if I had to," Leon said, lowering his pistol.

His act of surrender seemed to hit Ada hard. She could easily kill him and he wouldn't resist. That is, if she wanted to. Leon didn't know for sure, but he had a small feeling that Ada wouldn't kill him. It was a gamble, and Leon knew it.

Then, Leon heard it.

It took Ada a split second longer to hear it.

A series of dings coming from behind her, where the fallen doctor was. Only she wasn't dead, her hand had opened the case and was pressing buttons quickly—

-and the beeping that followed made it clear of what it was, as it got faster as the seconds went by—

Leon responded by instinct, grabbing Ada by the waist and using a small harpoon attached to a wire, which he used as a makeshift rope, the two jumped off—

-jus as an explosion shook the building, knocking Leon's rope loose, and the two fell below, landing right through the roof of the fake office building.


	4. Chapter 4

Everything had happened so fast, Ada wasn't sure exactly _what_ had happened to her. Her head felt like someone had used it as a drum, and her vision was blurry for the first few moments. When she regained her sight, she noticed the dust cloud that surrounded her like a fog.

The first thing she noticed was that Leon was under her. He had broken her fall, using himself as a crash pad. Ada wasn't too sure he had survived the fall, but the way his broad chest rose and fell made it clear he was still alive. Unconscious, but alive.

He had saved her life again.

_What a guy, saved me yet again…that seems to be his new habit,_ Ada thought with a smile. But her mind went back to the explosion. The data had been inside the case, and the case had been the bomb. Her mission had ended in failure.

_Well, the organization won't like that…_ She stood up, her gaze returning to the unconscious Leon.

Any minute, some support unit would arrive to retrieve him, and Ada had to leave to escape capture. When he awoke she'd be gone. As much as she didn't want to, she had to leave him.

Again. Like in Raccoon, like in Spain.

But not without leaving something for him.

Ada knelt back down to Leon, placing a hand on his chest, before she softly placed her lips against his. A simple gesture, a kiss of gratitude, and maybe a confession. A confession she'd be able to explain more in the future.

Standing back up, Ada smiled again, "Until next time, Leon."

And like a bolt of lightning, she was gone.

_Ada…_

Leon slowly came to at the sound of whirling, he had to shake his head to try and get his vision back to normal. He remembered the fall, and crashing through the roof, but nothing after that. He looked around, and saw he was no longer in the building, but in a chopper.

"Leon! You awake?"

It was Nathan's voice. "Yeah…"

"Shit, Leon. You had me worried for a minute there."

Leon sat up, noticing he was covered in dust, but was pretty much unharmed, "What happened?"

"I heard an explosion from the area I was waiting in, and came to investigate. I found you in the smaller building knocked out cold, so I got you out of there," Nathan explained.

"You didn't see anyone else nearby?"

The pilot shook his head, "No. Just you."

_Typical, _Leon thought with a chuckle.

Ada's shadow remained, even if she wasn't physically there, Leon knew he'd see her again. And next time, he hoped it be in a more civilized environment.


End file.
